The preacher did not know what to say, except that there were black sheep in all professions, and that there was a Judas even among the Apostles, and it became them all to judge in charity of one another.
‘That is what I want of you,’ said the actress.
But the preacher did not respond to her appeal, and again she left the church for the world.
Another day she tried the Methodists. Unfortunately, as she stepped in they were singing:
‘And be the business of my life
To cry, “Behold the Lamb!”’
In that church she saw some Wesleyan tradesmen whom she knew. Was that the business of their lives? Of course not. Man comes into the world to get a living and to make the most of it. The secular life is not superseded by the religious life—only adorned and purified by it.
‘You must give up your calling,’ said they all.
Indignantly she asked herself, Why? Her acting was her one talent. Was one to hide it in a napkin? Certainly not, said common-sense, and for once common-sense was right. Was she not doing good in her way, finding people innocent amusement, and teaching them, as she repeated nightly the great words of the great dramatist of our land, something of the wonder and grandeur and pathos and mystery of life? Hers was not an art to be despised. Hers was not a course of life to be abandoned at the command of a bigot, be he Roman monk or Protestant preacher. There was a time when the stage was the teacher of the people; why should it not be so now? she asked herself. It was her resolve that it should be so, as far as it was in her power. For as Tom Campbell wrote:
‘Ill can poetry express
Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but one glance from Time.
But by the mighty Actor brought,
Illusion’s wedded triumphs come;
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And Sculpture to be dumb.’
‘Ah!’ wrote Wentworth to her, ‘we need not despair of Divine mercy. Christ is bigger and broader than the Church. You in your way, and I in mine, have wandered far in search of such happiness as earth can give, and found it to be of little worth, and the sects look on us as sinners, because we refuse to bow to the image they have set up, or to utter their Shibboleth. I know not that it matters much. I know not that it matters anything at all. How can any man or any set of men pretend to have penetrated the full meaning of Scripture, or that they can bid stand back those as humble and patient in the pursuit of truth as themselves?’